The arts world is more acquainted to the judgement of history when it comes to the vexed issue of provenance.

But in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, one of Scotland's most successful artists, Peter Doig, has spent the last few weeks waiting for the decision of a very contemporary judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to confirm that he did not paint a painting.

US District Judge Gary Feinerman has now said he is sure that a disputed landscape painting was not painted by Doig, the Edinburgh-born international artist whose paintings sell for up to £18m at auction.

Read more: Scots artist Peter Doig wins US case over £3.8m painting he said was not his work

His decision dashed the hopes of the plaintiff, a Canadian former corrections officer Robert Fletcher, 62, who claimed the work was by Doig, and was painted when he was a teenager.

With one judicial decision, too, the value of the painting dropped from potentially several million dollars to a fraction of that.

Doig, raised in Trinidad and Canada, was adamant he had both not painted the picture and had not been jailed for LSD possession in the mid-1970s, as Mr Fletcher had claimed.

Doig, "absolutely did not paint the disputed work," Judge Feinerman said, adding that the testimony and documents presented at a seven-day trial conclusively showed that the artist did not paint the desert scene in 1976.

The judge said there was "massive evidence" that showed it was "impossible" for Doig to have painted the work.

Last night Doig said the case should never have come to court.

Read more: Scots artist Peter Doig wins US case over £3.8m painting he said was not his work

The judge also hinted that it could be a landmark case in contemporary art, noting: "An artist is well within his rights to ensure that art he did not create is not sold under his name."

Mr Fletcher, who wanted to sell the painting for what would likely be a sizeable sum, said Mr Doig painted it when the artist was imprisoned for possession of the drug LSD at a Canadian detention facility in the 1970s.

Mr Doig said it was by another painter, Pete Doige, who died in 2012.

The painting is signed 'Pete Doige 76', and the artist's lawyers claimed this is the mark of the late Mr Doige, who had served time at the same facility.

Doig said: "Today's verdict is the long overdue vindication of what I have said from the beginning four years ago: a young talented artist named Pete Edward Doige painted this work, I did not.

"That the plaintiffs in this case have shamelessly tried to deny another artist his legacy for money is despicable.

"The deceased artist's family and my family and friends have suffered mightily.

"Thankfully, justice prevailed, but it was way too long in coming.

Read more: Scots artist Peter Doig wins US case over £3.8m painting he said was not his work

"That a living artist has to defend the authorship of his own work should never have come to pass."

Gordon VeneKlasen, the co-owner of the Michael Werner Gallery, which represents Doig, said that the artist and his family have endured an "untold amount of stress and public scrutiny" because of what they described as a "senseless lawsuit."

He added: "The court has ruled in his favor, although we are deeply disappointed that it has taken so long to do so.

"It is our hope that this verdict will have at least one good outcome – that artists maintain the unfettered right to authenticate their own work."

Mr Fletcher had claimed he had bought it from Doig when the artist was imprisoned.

The sister of the Mr Doige, Marilyn Doige Bovard, had said that she believed Mr Fletcher had made a mistake.

"I believe that Mr. Fletcher is mistaken and that he actually met my brother, Peter, who I believe did this painting,” she said in a court declaration.

Doig also said he has never served time in jail and was a teenager living in Toronto with his parents in 1976, when Peter Doige was at Thunder Bay.